It has been right there for the borrowing since 1982. And it’s free, no strings.
It’s called the Coach Feldman Plan. It should have been used last week by the coach of 0-12 Southwest Adventist College in its 124-60 loss at 8-1 Wayland Baptist, the game that made national news because of the 100 points scored by J.J. Culver. He did so in 38 minutes on 62 field-goal attempts, including 33 3-pointers in the slaughter.
But high school and college record books are loaded with ill-gotten achievements as urged by just-don’t-get-it adult coaches.
The Feldman Plan was the sudden idea of Mel Feldman — a slow-to-anger, thoughtful, kids-first gym teacher and girls basketball coach at Fallsburg High School in the Catskills.
Terribly mismatched in a game against a sectional championship team that applied full-court pressure and only played its starters throughout the first half — 16 minutes in high school hoops — Feldman’s kids were down by 40 at the break.
That’s when he asked his team if they wanted to try something.
“In the locker room,” he told me several years ago, “I told the girls that no one deserves to be humiliated like that in any ball game. … And if beating us by as many points as possible was that important to their coach, the least we could do was help him out.”
So Feldman said that if their opponents came out in the second half still eager to further stomp them, he’d see their mockery of the game and raise it two mockeries: “We were to score layups into their basket.”
Among locals, the response was mixed, but Feldman’s girls loved the idea. They understood it.
They were eager to score for the other team. “And they had fun with it,” Feldman recalled.
The next time the Fallsburg girls played that school, they again were easily beaten — but by a keep-it-civil score. The opposing coach didn’t press all game and liberally played his substitutes. Thanks to the Coach Feldman Plan, he got it.
“From no sportsmanship,” Feldman said, “to total sportsmanship.”
And everyone lived happily ever after.
One can only wonder how the Wayland Baptist coach would have handled the Feldman Plan if enacted by Adventist on Tuesday in Texas. Would he have ordered his team to try to block shots aimed at his basket? Would the official scorer have asked for an official scorer?
What we do know is that the fish-in-a-barrel 100 points scored by a player would’ve taken a far back seat to Adventist’s response to this needless humiliation.
“You want to make news by humiliating us, making fools of us? You want headlines? Well, try this one on for size. What’s that? You never heard of the Coach Feldman Plan?”
On ESPN’s “Around The Horn,” panelist Frank Isola, bless his heart, ripped Wayland Baptist coach, Ty Harrelson, for engineering a nauseating bludgeoning and depriving his bench of genuine game time by feeding a player until he became the fourth college male to score at least 100 in a game. Yes, on ESPN — where our sports normally go to have their sports removed.
Early this season, in a 100-51 win vs. Arlington Baptist, a Wayland starter played 35 minutes and took 10 3-pointers. Clear the bench? Kill some clock? Nah, kill the sport, kick ’em when they’re way down. Wonder what they’d do against Mercy.
The school’s mission statement: “Wayland Baptist University exists to educate students in an academically challenging, learning-focused and distinctively Christian environment for professional success and service to God and humankind.”
Heaven help us.
Here’s how to make pregame shows interesting
None of TV’s Sunday NFL pregame shows are distinguishable from the rest because none even bother to try.
How to make those shows genuinely interesting, instead of wastes of time loaded with forced laughter and promotional excess?
1) Have a sagacious, stats-debunking fellow such as CBS’ Phil Simms host a weekly segment in which he examines and explains the misuse of stats otherwise presented as enlightening and telltale.
2) Have a non-pandering panelist weekly examine penalties of misconduct, then track them as to how they altered the outcome of games.
3) Find interesting players coaches and even game officials — those not widely known to the public — and interview them as to why their lives are interesting.
Veteran ref Walt Anderson is a retired dentist. Umpire Fred Bryan, from Minneapolis, at 17 stole a car and was sentenced to a juvenile correctional facility. He later began a career counseling teens, short-stopping them as they headed for lives of crime.
None of the above is expensive to produce. You wouldn’t prefer any of it to the usual filler? I don’t care who Boomer Esiason, Bill Cowher or Michael Strahan like in the Niners-Vikings game. And I suspect neither do they.
At first it struck me as appalling that the NFL could find no one more worthy than hard prison time Michael Vick to be an honorary captain at this Pro Bowl. More NFL pandering. But then, upon further review and research, Vick at least seems a changed man — despite some fresh tax issues.
His fundraising and hands-on work with animal-rescue organizations seem a sincere way to demonstrate his remorse for operating a bloody, to-the-death dog-fighting ring. Obviously, he doesn’t run from his past; quite the contrary. Perhaps he has earned both the doubt and its benefits.
Goodbye to Austin, a good guy
Especially given the scarcely improved two-way deficiencies of Gary Sanchez, the Yankees’ loss of steady two-way catcher Austin Romine to the Tigers last week should have been met with greater anguish from local media and Yankees fans.
But around here, it often seems that the easiest guys to root for — and for all the right, fundamental reasons — are the most expendable. Heck, I still miss Ronald Torreyes.
International competitions that included U.S. teams used to invite my unconditional rooting interests. Not so much these days, not with attention-starved me-firsters such as soccer’s Megan Rapinoe and golf’s childishly provocative Patrick Reed representing U.S. teams. Too much compromise.
This is the time of year when Ron Darling’s words echo: “They pay all the big money to starters then expect the relievers to win all the games.”
Other than losing records, the Jets, Eagles, Colts, Buccaneers, Dolphins and Panthers have something else in common: They’re among the NFL’s top teams in red-zone scoring efficiency. The 6-7 Cowboys lead the NFL in third-down efficiency.
I know, I know, as far as Janoris Jenkins is concerned, “That’s not who I am.”